Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fine Dining

The Dutch make some mighty fine stroopwafels, but as a nation they are not really known for their cuisine.  You can make any foodstuff a Dutch-style dish in two easy steps:
1). boil it until it is no longer recognizable
2). slather it in butter

Dutch people eat, as previously mentioned, lots of dairy products.  Dutch cheese is supposed to be awesome, but as far as I can tell, it all tastes the same, just with differing degrees of hardness.  They drink lots of milk, buttermilk, and liquidy-yogurt drink called Vifit.  (FYI, I love Vifit).  The bread is soft, brown bread seems to be favored, and they really like mustard.

The Dutch also like to eat things that are not cooked.  
Example 1). Filet American.  This is neither a steak nor American.  It is basically really finely ground beef that is spicy and black peppery.  And not cooked.  You spread it on bread.

Example 2). Haring.  I like to consider haring as Dutch style sushi.  Thankfully it comes without bones, heads, or tails.  The real Dutch eat it cut up into pieces with onions and pickels, using a toothpick.  Cowards like me, or Dutch desiring a meal, eat broodje haring.  Broodje means sandwhich, so broodje haring is the haring, pickels, and onions in a soft roll.

Haringhandel.  A haring stand; these are all over and usually closed on rainy days.  A broodje haring usually runs about 3 euros.














Front view of a broodje haring.














Side view.  It shouldn't taste or smell remotely fishy, otherwise the fish is too old.














And I know you're wondering, did I eat any of the Filet American?  You betcha.  Liang and Dara and I once ate chicken feet - of course I eat the Filet American and the haring.  I AMSTERDAM.  (I draw the line at eyeballs, I won't eat eyeballs).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now stroopwafels look very tempting, but broodje haring is just plain disgusting to look at. It probably tastes better than it looks. The raw ground beef spread doesn't even sound safe to eat! Although, when you think about McDonald's milkshakes, at least it is real food.

DPLK said...

I don't know, I think I'd eat those chicken feet over filet american and the broodje haring any day. At least it's cooked in a sweet soy sauce.

And cooked.

Props to you for eating that stuff.